Carmel Junior College, Jamshedpur won the inter-school debate organised after 11 years by the the Association of British Scholars (ABS), Jamshedpur chapter at the Centre for Excellence in Bistupur on Monday.
Divya Dardiyashi (for) and Debarpita Rakshit's (against) of Carmel Junior College stole the thunder of 40 class IX to XII students from 20 city schools debating the motion: 'Technology is invading our freedom to think', walking away with the rolling trophy reserved for the best team. Divya also bagged the best speaker award.
"The advent of technology has sharpened our thinking skills. In fact the invention of technology itself is an example of the high levels of thinking that we have today. With more exposure to technology we have also started thinking from various perspectives and have also started thinking about the future," posited XI student Nikhil Kumar from Rajendra Vidyalaya, speaking against the motion, while junior Parul Thakur from class X contradicted her team mate as she spoke for the topic: "We don't do anything by ourselves today. We are dependent on technology. With technology our brains have stopped working. The best example of technology invading our life is the Blue Whale challenge," argued Parul.
Kerala Public School, Kadma class XII student Rahul Gorai speaking for the motion said, "When you look up word in a dictionary, you get to learn 10 other words but this is not possible on Google. We have stopped imagining and thinking and the dubious credit for that goes to technology"
With this debate, the ABS Jamshedpur chapter aims to revive the culture of debating. The last such debate was organised by them as back as in 2006.
"We had organised an all India inter school debate competition and we are trying to revive the same and this is just the start" ABS, Jamshedpur chapter president Sumitesh Das said and added that Monday's event was loved by the various schools and their students. "We are trying to co-ordinate with other chapters in India so that we can plan something at that (all India) level," Das said.
